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This question is about Austrian law.

Imagine there is a real estate agent, who helps people buy and sell properties. Many of his elderly clients

  1. sell the property they have,
  2. with that money buy a flat in another place
  3. in order to live closer to a hospital.

Imagine there is a place far away from the next hospital and there is a doctor in that place.

Is it legal for this doctor to put a billboard in his office with ads of places with better access to hospital (i. e. places, where his senior clients can move to, if they buy the services of the real estate agent) ?

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  • Do you have any particular reason to think this would be illegal? – WBT Apr 10 '16 at 18:23
  • In Germany, there are special regulations regarding what doctors can advertise and what they can't. As far as I know, they are not allowed to advertise medications, for example (I'm 80 % sure they aren't allowed to place a poster on their counter saying you should buy medication X). There are ways to circumvent those restrictions, though. For example, they can write books, participate in TV shows, or hold seminars and get more clients that way (that's legal). I have no idea, how it works in Austria. – Mentiflectax Apr 10 '16 at 19:18
  • Why this may be illegal - a doctor is an authority person. If he recommends someone a property and gets paid for that, you could attack him on two fronts. First, he abused his position as an authority for the elderly. Second, by taking money from the real estate agent he's involved into a conflict of interest (the doctor has an incentive to manipulate the patient into selling his old property and buying a new one). – Mentiflectax Apr 10 '16 at 19:22
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    The doctor (who would lose business if patients moved away) is an authority on health & medicine, not real estate. – WBT Apr 10 '16 at 19:32

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